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Next Capital Campaign Is Off to a Great Start

At the October General Faculty Meeting, Karen Rendleman, Senior Associate Vice President for Health System Development and Executive Director of the UVA Health Foundation,shared that the next capital campaign, Honor the Future: The Campaign for the University of Virginia, is off to a great start. This campaign will officially launch in October 2019, but has been tallying gifts since the end of the last campaign four years ago. The overarching goal is to raise $5 billion by 2025, which will allow the University to bolster strategic objectives in service of the greater good.

The Health System’s portion of Honor the Future is called The Campaign for Health and has a $1 billion goal to support initiatives in patient care, research, and medical and nursing education across the Health System. While we’re still in the silent phase of the campaign, it’s impressive to know that $337 million in gifts, pledges, and philanthropic grants have come to the School of Medicine, Medical Center, and School of Nursing. This includes $72M in future support, which are bequest intentions or other planned gifts that will be realized in the future.

Also included in the new gifts are $114M in private philanthropic grants, which are investigator-initiated and are counted in the campaign totals as is standard industry practice.

What does this mean for our mission? Philanthropic support seeds novel projects, supports clinical trials, and helps advance research at all stages. We are able to attract and retain the best faculty and researchers through professorships and other endowments. Our students benefit from lower debt through scholarship support. And our patients thrive from initiatives that enhance the patient experience. The gifts and pledges of future support touch areas such as Cancer ($41M), Children’s Hospital ($19M), or Neurosciences/Neurology (nearly $15M), and extend across the entire Health System. Our benefactors give both outright expendable gifts and endowed gifts. More than $60M in endowed gifts have come in so far. These endowments support not only professorships, scholarships and fellowships, but also groundbreaking research.

It is important to remember that most of the dollars that come in via philanthropy are restricted and designated for a particular use. Donors give for a specific reason or to a particular cause. We appreciate any amount, and in any way, we receive support. As part of the campaign planning effort, we are working closely with Karen and her team on defining our School of Medicine priorities and goals around both restricted and unrestricted funds.

Who Gives? And Why?

To date, 30,051 donors have supported the School of Medicine and the Medical Center. Their particular reasons for giving are as singular as the individuals themselves, but the common theme is you. Grateful patients give back in honor of the exemplary care they received at UVA; alumni give back to support an institution that prepared them for their careers; and friends, community members, and other University alumni see the exciting work we’re doing and want to be a part of it. All of our donors see a need and want to help. They are inspired by the skill, dedication, and compassion of our faculty and staff across the entire Health System. Here’s a breakdown of who has given so far:

8,028 University alumni ($51.9M)

112 family foundations ($9.6M)

70 estates ($29.8M)

19,519 friends ($52.9M) 2,322 parents ($10.2M)

2,534 corporations, foundations, and other organizations ($147.3M)

That’s a lot of numbers. Here are a couple of examples that illustrate philanthropy’s impact.

School of Medicine alumnus Allen Hogge and his wife, Joan, took advantage of the University’s Bicentennial Scholarship matching program to endow a scholarship. The Hogges both benefitted from scholarship support when they were in college and wanted to help the University recruit the best students. This type of private support is critical to reducing our students’ debt.

Family foundations, like the Ivy Foundation and the Manning Family Foundation, accelerate research discovery across the Health System. These two foundations alone provide more than $750,000 in annual support for research projects.

Thank you to our faculty and staff who make this important work possible. These gifts reflect your exceptional efforts and your partnership with our Development team. Special thanks to Karen and her team for helping us fund our missions. If you have questions about philanthropy, or how you can help, please contact Anne Watkins, Assistant Vice President & Chief Development Officer, School of Medicine.

David S. Wilkes, M.D.
Dean, UVA School of Medicine
James Carroll Flippin Professor of Medical Science

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